The Voynich Ninja

Beautiful! I thought it would be Tuscan, but apparently it's made in Venice. Since we know the place of production, that's where it should go. Obviously we never know the exact location with manuscripts and movable art, so I just kind of spread them out in the general area of the city.

My in-laws are in Brixen at the moment and sent me this.. it's the main square

They were added in 1895 when one of the houses in the square was reworked into a palace.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

By the way, if they ever plan to visit Schloss Goldrain, please ask them to enquire about the covered up swallowtail merlons mentioned here:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

An interesting heraldic insignia.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I apologize for the delay, but I get easily distracted by shiny things, like this one:

Triptych of Saint Claire, now in the Museo Sartorio of Trieste. The wings were painted by a young Paolo Veneziano in the 1320s for the nuns of Saint Claire at the Monastery of Saint Cipriano. This convent was located on the Caboro Hill near the round bastion of the castle between the 1270s and 1458, when it moved to its long-time address at Via delle Monache 3. Since 2012, the nuns reside in the village of Prosecco, known for its famous fizzy drink. The triptych was gifted to the Triestine physician Antonio Lorenzutti in the late 19th century as a thank-you for the free medical services he had provided to their commmunity. His family donated it to the city of Trieste in 1907.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
This is the only early Venetian painting of swallowtail merlons I've been able to find.

You're on a roll with these paintings - I found it hard to find any non-fresco one.

So far we've only sratched the surface. I'm sure there are many more scattered across the hundreds of art museums in Northern Italy. Frescoes are easier to find for three reasons: they are tied to specific workshops, the imagery is more predictable, with recurring saints and "cycles", and they are more widely distributed in time and space: paintings are rare outside of the big cities and typically later than the last quarter of the 14th century, whereas high-quality frescoes can be found in mountain churches and roadside chapels.

 A workshop operating mostly within a single province could cover dozens of churches over a few decades, and many of these churches would later hire the same workshop, or a differnt one, to expand the existing decoration. There may have been 2-3 contemporary workshops in an average province at any given time, and about a third to a half of the frescoed churches/chapels/annexes were new (do not cite me on this, though, the point is that there was a lot of new construction and art commissions were a staple side dish). Sculptures and sacred objects followed a similar pattern of patronage, but in the case of altar paintings, only one was needed at a time, and they were only common in big cities until the Renaissance. During the Renaissance, the same process unfolded with newer workshops, or the old ones adopting newer techniques, and concomitantly, with newer churches or the old ones commissioning new art. Most churches were never too poor to afford the whole package, so they could only compete by hiring the biggest names in Renaissance art. This would go on until about the seventeeth century, when bishops became more proactive in decorating churches, and unfortunately also in erasing older art. In fact, many of the Gothic frescoes we know and love were covered with plaster or hidden behind altars and other furniture in order to save them from the bishop's plans. After the mid-eighteenth century, there was little church construction outside of industrializing suburbs, but this was not true for earlier periods: you could find a Gothic church and a Baroque one in one village, and Romanesque church next to a Renaissance one in the neighboring village. Oftentimes, the same church had multiple architectural layers, occasionally corresponding to different art styles, but each and every church possesses an art collection spanning multiple centuries. Only Romanesque and earlier frescoes were comparatively rare when they were made, and also less likely to survive.

The head of a workshop often trained in multiple locations, thus incorporating techniques from multiple schools. This also made them more adaptable in the later part of their careers, whereas their associates often painted in a "mannerist" style similar to their master's. As a result, workshops rarely lasted more than two generations. Paolo Veneziano and his successors could afford to make "only" paintings because they were the leaders of the Venetian School. He had all the best commissions.

Ed, can your tool count the number of Late Gothic/Early Renaissance painters from Italy who were ever mentioned in this forum?

The big discovery will have to wait another week until I'm back from my current trip. In the meantime:

The mysterious MS X,  Continuation of the Roman de Guiron, written in the Franco-Venetian language and illustrated by the Master of Guiron, the same artist behind the BNF NAF 5243. Northern Italy, 1350-1370.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.